NORTHWEST AIRLINES refuses to honor prize tickets for gay couple

[Bluebear]

Northwest Airlines took heat from the ACLU on Thursday for refusing to honor award tickets that a gay couple in Los Angeles tried to use for a trip to Florida.

In a letter to Northwest, the legal advocacy group said the airline's action violated California's nondiscrimination laws.

Rob Anders, a longtime airline industry employee, won the tickets at a holiday party in December. When he tried to redeem the tickets for a trip with his registered domestic partner, the airline refused, saying it would only recognize a spouse, another airline employee or a dependent child as a suitable "companion" for the award ticket.

"What happened to Mr. Anders and his partner violates California law and is clearly discriminatory," said Christine P. Sun, ACLU of Southern California staff attorney. "We are asking that the company not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status and honor Mr. Anders' ticket for him and a companion."

The ACLU cited the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which mandates "full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever" without regard to sexual orientation or marital status.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20060212/co_po/northwestrefusesgaycouplesawardtickets

[TomInTib]

1. "another airline employee", Holy Crap (literally)

So it would be OK if they were gay partners and employed by Northwest.

on edit:
Damn, you would think that using only 2 fingers that I could hit the right key.

[warsager]

2. i hope they win - nt

[roguevalley]

3. this is so sad and awful. I hope they prevail.

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Shame on Northwest! A Modest Proposal: CLOSETS in the passenger

compartment.

K & R - we need to do some DUing here...

[purduejake]

5. WOW!

This amazes me. I work for a major airline and that would NEVER happen. We'd loose about half of our management, countless flight attendants and pilots, and a good portion of our customer service department. I guess I am just lucky working for a great company.

[preciousdove]

6. If Unions strike NW for enslavement TVNews says they will be out of

business in 2 days. NW filed bankruptcy late last year. Employees have bailed NW out time after time. Some believe NW ran themselves into the ground on purpose and hoped to reemerge minus unions from bankruptcy.

NW calls strikes "illegal" and this is the first time in history a judge will rule because both sides could not reach an agreement.

Major employer. Major Airline.

[av8rdave]

15. Same thing is about to happen at Delta with the pilots

n/t

[bluestateguy]

7. Isn't there still some kind of Northwest strike going on?

Nobody seems to be paying any attention to it.

[EFerrari]

8. What IS the matter with these people? That's just nuts.

We need to boycott them.

[Bluebear]

37. Let me count the ways.

A once proud airline being led by people with no hearts.

[spiderbiter]

9. HUH?

What does the airline care who rides in their damn planes? Nobody would even know if they hadn't made such an issue of it. If they are worried about possible 'bad publicity' if gays used the tickets (an asinine reason to begin with), it was the AIRLINE who told the world about it!

[ClayZ]

10. K and R

:kick:

[Hepburn]

11. What NW Airlines did...

...is too stupid for words! To say the least, the 'tude they have is antediluvian. I have put them on my list of companies which I will boycott. What's next with these azzholes? No blacks or women allowed on their flights?

Unbelievable stupidity and gross lack of respect for human rights on their part.

:wtf:

[momster]

12. Who else can't go?

According to these rules, you couldn't take your best friend, your mother, your priest/rabbi/shaman, your next door neighbor,your 21-year-old son or daughter, etc, etc.

Bet it won't even get to a judge....

[Jade Fox]

14. That's what I was thinking....

Don't prizes like that usually stipulate "you and one other person", there by allowing people to choose their own companions?

[Solly Mack]

13. Who the fuck are they to determine who's a "suitable" companion?

so had his partner been an employee, there would have been no problems? (yeah, right)

[pitohui]

16. this is not northwest policy, something wrong here

believe me, i know northwest and they have lots of openly gay employees on the front line and they do get domestic partner benefits

they do allow domestic partners to fly on awards and stand-by tickets but, more than that, i can give my award ticket to ANYONE i like, not just a spouse or domestic partner, as long as i don't sell it, it is against rules to sell an award on ebay or the like to a "friend" who i never would have met if he hadn't paypal'd me $200

we need to get to the bottom of this story because this is a gay supportive company and as i said in the other thread i honestly believe some mistake has been made

and in any case there is no wedding ring check to see if i'm married to the person i give my frequent flyer award to as a gift, that has never happened to me or anyone i've ever heard of

on the other thread "puglover" posted and pointed out that he was on vacation w. his domestic partner on a northwest award

[Solly Mack]

17. Thank you! Please let me know anything you are able to find out

I appreciate you responding and letting me know this.

[pitohui]

18. i'll try to get updates from some of the airline boards

so far i haven't seen much to confirm this really happened, it seems rather up in the air, to forgive the pun

there are some disgruntled folks because of the strike and it is not impossible that disinformation be put out, northwest undoubtedly has its labor issues, but being anti-gay is certainly not one of those issues and a strange point to attack them on

[Bluebear]

20. This is not a frequent flyer award, however

It is a 'prize letter'. Usually during the HOLIDAY season (there's a war on Christmas, you know :)) airlines will donate prize letters to other airlines for their employee Christmas parties. I faced the same thing years ago when I won an Aer Lingus pass and it had exactly the same stipulation, I could take a spouse if I were legally married or another airline employee to Ireland. Since I was partnered and not married, the "prize" letter ended up in the garbage.

[pitohui]

21. maybe but i'm still not finding anything

to be honest i haven't yet been able to find any evidence this actually happened at all

[Bluebear]

23. Well here is the ACLU press release.

http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/discrim/24127prs20060209.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [e-mail]

LOS ANGELES – Northwest Airlines violated California's anti-discrimination laws when it refused to allow a gay couple to use tickets an employee won at a holiday party, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said today in a letter urging the company to change its policies.

The ACLU sent the letter on behalf of La Mirada resident Rob Anders, a longtime airline industry employee, who won round-trip domestic airfare on Northwest Airlines for him and a companion at his company holiday party last December. But when he tried to redeem the tickets for himself and his registered domestic partner, Northwest refused.

"What happened to Mr. Anders and his partner violates California law and is clearly discriminatory," said Christine P. Sun, ACLU of Southern California staff attorney. "We are asking that the company not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status and honor Mr. Anders' ticket for him and a companion."

Anders, who has lived with his partner for 15 years, had been planning to use the tickets to visit his 89-year-old mother in Florida for a family reunion last month. "I felt terrible,” he said. “I thought what they were doing was unfair."

A representative from Northwest Airlines told Anders that the airline would only recognize a spouse, another airline employee, or a dependent child as a companion. The representative specifically stated Northwest Airlines would not recognize a registered domestic partner as a "spouse" for the tickets.

In its letter to Northwest, the ACLU said that the Unruh Civil Rights Act, part of California law,"mandates 'full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever' without regard to sexual orientation or marital status."

"Because same-sex couples who wish to marry cannot currently do so under California law, using marriage as a criterion discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation,” Sun said. "Northwest's policy also discriminates on the basis of marital status because it does not permit unmarried heterosexual individuals to bring the companion of their choice."

Anders, who is 60, has lived in Southern California since 1971. He and his partner Pat registered as domestic partners in California in 2004. Anders is part of many local civic groups and has traveled the world.

[pitohui]

24. yeah i saw the aclu press release -- added contact info

but it is the same thing in the same exact words every place the story is mentioned which is making me highly suspicious that the story has a single source, real events usually have multiple sources and multiple points of view as they are covered in the news media

there doesn't seem to be evidence of anything so far except that anders got someone at aclu to write a letter

northwest's policy does NOT discriminate on basis of marital status, you may contact them yourself and you will learn that northwest does allow domestic partners and any-frickin-body else to travel with whoever they please, no gate dragon has ever stopped me at the gate and demanded to know my sexual relationship to anyone i'm flying with, i mean, come on, how would you even enforce this, people would just fib anyway, no one walks around w. a marriage license to get on an airplane, sheesh, one of my former business partners has been flying standby as a domestic partner of a pilot for years and years

the ONLY time i've heard of tickets being pulled was when northwest found out the tickets were re-sold for money to strangers on ebay which is in violation of any airline's rules

i guess i'm saying i think aclu has either been hoaxed or that mr. anders got a crappy disgruntled customer service rep on the line and if he had called back and asked to speak to someone else, he and his partner would be in the air right now

either way i think this problem will be quickly fixed once brought to northwest's attention

contact information for northwest--
https://www.nwa.com/talk

their phone line isn't worth a crap, but their email "talk to me" service is usually super fast and responsive to your questions, so if you want to drop them a line, i'd say email is the way to go, the other thread gave their phone number which i hate to tell you there is no airline w. a phobia abt talking on the phone like northwest airlines, esp. when they're busy with weather waivers

[Bluebear]

25. They are not tickets. It is a prize letter.

It's the kind you have to write in to either the local station manager or the pass bureau and they will send back passes. As I mentioned earlier, this exact same thing happened to me on Aer Lingus years ago. I ended up not taking the trip as I had to either take a legal spouse or another airline worker. You could not sell this on ebay as it is a nonrevenue pass kind of thing, not a frequent flyer award.

[pitohui]

27. well i know nothing abt aer lingus or their policies

but northwest airlines couldn't get into the air at all w.out its gay employees and they do have domestic partner bennies :shrug:

[Katherine Brengle]

19. um, so if you won and you were single, would you have to alone?

I mean, would they have included an unmarried heterosexual couple in the "unsuitable companion" category?

If so, then it's probably still wrong, but at least it would just be overly moralistic and not necessary discriminatory.

[donco6]

31. That's what I wondered, too.

What an odd requirement for a prize ticket.

[wicket]

22. Absolutely dispicable

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Xenotime]

26. I'll never fly them again...

I'll drive to Minnesota if I have to.

[pitohui]

28. not quite ready to drive to amsterdam or narita myself

we quite obviously do not have all the facts, anyone who flies this airline regularly knows that they are normally v. gay friendly in their policies

why don't we wait to judge?

i'm going to dig into this and if i get some real information i'll come back

[Bluebear]

30. Why is this not 'real information'?

You think it's a hoax and that someone got someone from the ACLU to 'write a press release' so it never happened?

Northwest did not even recognize domestic partnerships until the IAM and Teamsters Union made it a bargaining demand.

[B Calm]

29. I'm with you!

[never_get_over_it]

32. I'm not defending them but am wondering

would they have made the same decision if the unmarried people taking the trip were a man and a woman - my company use to have a policy for spousal events meant you had to actually be a spouse - they have since changed it to significant others and I'm sure that can be any gender combination -

[Bluebear]

33. That's the crux of the issue though.

An unmarried male-female couple has the choice whether or not to marry. Meanwhile a committed same-sex relationship has no choice. So the prizewinner's option was to go on vacation with someone other than his partner or forfeit the prize.

[never_get_over_it]

36. Oh I understand that

I guess why I'm asking is that their position would be even worse if they let and unmarried heterosexual couple go - believe me if you win a prize which includes a guest you should be able to bring whomever you freaking want to with maybe the exception of children if its an adult event....this doesn't seem like it was an event though....being single myself that is why I was so happy when my company changed their "spousal" rule.

[Danmel]

34. That is terrible

It's incidents like this that point out the need to give people legal protection. Northwest should be just embarrassed by this.

[gollygee]

35. That is both discriminatory and just plain mean

Even if they're homophobic, as a business decision it doesn't make sense. They must have known they'd get bad press and look like meanies.